H1Z1’s PC team makes the game look more old-school than ever before

While it will never be mistaken for the ultra-colorful and cartoony Fortnite, H1Z1 — sorry, Z1 Battle Royale — is doing what it can to make the PC version of the game easier on the eyes.

In a pair of tweets this week, Z1’s PC dev team gave a sneak preview of the lighting and graphic improvements that are attempting to ape how the game used to look. It looks like a step up, including road textures, fog, haze, shadows, and sharper colors.

While the PS4 H1Z1 is being handled by Daybreak Games, the PC Z1 Battle Royale has been transferred over to NantGMobile’s command. The new team (with old devs) has stated that it wants to “restore the game back to its former glory with the Season 3 update coming in March.”

We have another update video showing off the progress on recreating PS3 style lighting/graphics.

In addition to the video we just posted, here are some screenshots for you guys to compare. Both are taken today on the same rig with the same in game settings. One from live and one from the local PS3 recreation build.#Update#Progress#TheFeelspic.twitter.com/7cXRFeAIoj

What’s the story on the previous graphics change? What happened and why was it done?

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7 months ago

Reader

Akagi

I saw the tweets, they are toning down the colors.

The irony here is that H1Z1 was afraid it looks like Fortnite, but with the toned down colors it looks like PUBG…. xD

They should do their own thing and apply some filter like Sepia or some shit that will make their game stand out. Like some blue filter will make the game get a colder feel, if that’s what they want, et cetera…

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7 months ago

Reader

Greaterdivinity

I feel like PS3 isn’t referring to PlayStation 3 given that the game never came out on that…Have to imagine it’s referencing a period during the games development?

So wait…the more colorful, (IMO) better looking version is live…and the updated screenshot is them appearing to intentionally wash out the colors and hammer down contrast/saturation settings? It may just be my preference for more colorful games, but I’d take the live colors over the PS3 build any day.

The game still looks off to me, though. It just doesn’t look like a game that’s had years and years of development from a (at least formerly) notable developer, complete with esports initiatives etc. It continues, at least to me, to look like a game built by a group of indie devs in college during a week-long game jam. I do wonder how much/if any of that is related to the Forgelight engine itself though.